The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP)

The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) was born of the struggles of one tenacious survivor of domestic violence and stalking. The NCIDP continues her work with the help of many. Read more about the NCIDP...

A predator prefers the meekest, gentlest as his targeted prey.

The human predator, the perpetrators, help us identify the meekest, gentlest, most innocent and kind among us – those that they target most. Any responsible, moral society, to remain so and to be at peace, must recognize this and most protect and empower such gentle and meek spirits.

Perpetrators are everywhere! Beware!

Here is the bottom line on understanding abusers, Abusive Personality Disordered individuals, any rise of violence in any society anywhere in the world: abusers feel entitled to and over the lives and existences of others.

There are clues to look out for, though, that might help you recognize many of those perps. Indeed, recent (2011) research at Cornell University (United States) shows that many people do a fair job of recognizing some types of perpetrators just by looking at a picture.

The type that most evaded detection in this Cornell research, however: RAPISTS.

The National Council on Identity Policy (NCIDP) Psychosocial Department identifies chronic, or habitual, perpetrators of violent assaults as Abusive Personality Disordered (APD) individuals – the most prevalent and destructive mental illness in the United States, and possibly in much of the Westernized/Industrialized world.

Abusive Personality Disordered (APD) individuals are further subdivided into several subcategories, one of which is Sociopathic Disordered Abusive Personality Disordered (SD-APD), the most dangerous, and devious, of all mental disorders – and increasingly prevalent. Herein lies the rub: that's the type of many repeat rape offenders (some are of other subcategories of APD, and possibly further studies will find them to be the rapists that people do better identify on sight). SD-APD individuals feel particularly entitled over others, lack an authentic sense of conscience about doing harm to others, among other characteristics. The SD-APD type, including many serial rapists, can enmesh themselves so thoroughly into their charming public facade, while feeling so utterly entitled over others, that people often think such individuals are the last people in the world who would perpetrate any kind of violence. In fact, in the Cornell research, the rapists shown were thought less likely to be criminals from their photos than many of the non-criminals shown.

In short, what the Cornell research may indicate, in part, is that the inner psychological conflict of doing violence to others shows through to a person's surface, becomes visible on their faces over time, EXCEPT when the perpetrator is that most utterly dangerous, devious, and soulless sociopathic type (SD-APD) of perpetrator. While other APD individuals may have shades of inner conscience conflicting with their violent behaviors, SD-APD individuals typically do not. Besides serial rapists, pimps and corrupt persons of authority are predominantly SD-APD types, among others.

Keep in mind that these terms being used clinically by the NCIDP Psychosocial Department apply to chronic, repeat offenders. It is possible for anyone, even a non-APD individual, to do some kind of violence to someone at some time. Mental disorders, personality disorders, however, are defined by the chronic repetition of behaviors, not by rare behaviors that are the exception for an individual.

Again, the bottom line on understanding abusers, Abusive Personality Disordered individuals, on any rise of violence in any society anywhere in the world: abusers feel entitled to and over the lives and existences of others.

Here are some critical recognition facets of domestic violence Abusive Personality Disordered perpetrators (addressing APD in general and several subcategories, but not necessarily including the numerous unique traits of stranger serial perpetrators like stranger rapists and pedophiles):

Abusers drive the abuse! Individuals with Abusive Personality Disorders (APD, including all subcategories) feel a profound need within them for conflict and violence over which they have control. They feel a need to abuse. It doesn't matter what the victim does, fight back or participate in any way, or not, the abuser will abuse. In fact, studies have shown that the most passive victims are the most likely to be killed by their domestic abusers; and, ostensibly, victims that fight back, agitate their abusers, sometimes characterized as "abuse back", are serving to provide their abusers with a sort of pressure relief valve, helping their abusers get riled up earlier, before that "need" to abuse gets so strong that the abuser would explode with lethal rage. In other words, the active, responsive, agitating victim is helping manage their own safety by helping manage the ever-building rage of their abusive partner.
Abusers choose to abuse! While APD individuals feel an internal "need" to abuse, they generally feel, at a similar deep level, entitled to commit that abuse (especially profound among SD-APD, harder won, conflicted sense among other APD subcategories) – they give themselves permission to commit the abuse. They feel their inner rage build, feel a need for violence over which they have control, AND they feel entitled over the life and existence of others that justifies, to them, to hurl that rage at others. Any excuse will do, and the more passive and quiet the victim is, the more outrageous, inane, irrational and extreme the excuse, will be the perpetrators invented excuse – and enacted violence. In fact, the degree of irrationality for the perpetrators excuse to rage serves as a general indicator of how extreme the buildup of inner rage has become, and of how extreme the violence will be. But when the rage has built up, and instead the perpetrator gets quieter rather than has the needed explosion, then the victim is really in profound danger: the perpetrator has likely made a big decision with that rage, has likely decided to act deviously and with a plan, rather than to explode – but the rage is still in charge, and will drive that plan, which will likely be a plan to kill the victim (most likely among SD-APD perpetrators).
Abusers target their prey! Abusers actively seek out survivors of past abuse and violence, or anyone that is vulnerable, just as an animal predator seeks out the weakest members of a herd to prey upon. Victims of abuse do not cause their own abuse.
Abusers blame the victims! AND, abusers think abuse is okay! Anyone who ever says to a survivor of domestic violence, "What did you do to bring that into your life?", or anything similar, has themselves Abusive Personality Disorder (APD). Anyone who tells a woman not to dress provocatively, or "as a slut" so that she doesn't get raped also, themselves, has APD. Both are victim blaming statements, and both are completely wrong! Individuals with APD (especially SD-APD) have a profound sense of entitlement to and over the lives and existences of others. The abuser may say abuse and violence is wrong, but then turn around and commit it anyway from that deeper inner place of entitlement.
Abusers like to treat everything and everyone like a game to be won by any means possible! Just as they sometimes pay lip service against violence only to do it themselves, they are generally dishonest in many ways, and most especially about other people. And especially among SD-APD types, lying can be part of 'the sport of the game'. Abusers tend to create a public 'front', and image of themselves for the public that is often charming, disarming and charismatic. This requires a whole lot of lying, false pretenses, and obfuscations. The darker, monstrous abuser generally likes to come out in private.
Abusers like to wear sheep's clothing and obtain power! Abusers seek out opportunities to create a public image as one who does 'good works' of various kinds. Anything from volunteering at a soup kitchen for the homeless, to working in a domestic violence agency, to working in law enforcement. In most cases, this serves the double purpose of gaining power of vulnerable potential new targets, even while rounding out the public front personality. From these positions they are then able to commit various kinds of abuse, and abuse this new power over people, whether in grotesquely outrageous ways [e.g.: Rapists Protected by SF Doctors; Terrorists 'Own' San Francisco; The Hate that Kills at Tom Waddell], or in stealthier ways [e.g.: A Case of Justice Derailed; U.S. Park Police (Presidio Reperp)]. IMPORTANTLY, note that the more openly bold an SD-APD type can be with the abuse, AND the more they can rally the opinions, aid and assistance of others to that abuse (even if, perhaps especially if, those others don't know their helping a perpetrator to perpetrate), the more gratification the SD-APD type gets from it. BUT THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS for an SD-APD may very well be "normalizing" the abuse [e.g.: California DMV (RICO); Tax Time Homicides; DSM V Zucker-Blanchard Revisions; and, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where they sexually molest and pornography virtually every airline passenger before boarding], AND APD individuals often participate in such "normalized" violence with a special level of gratification or even delight, even if they didn't themselves begin the "normalization" of it. ALSO NOTE: if an abuser obtains enough of a status of broad power over people, such as obtaining obscene wealth or other source of high power, that perpetrator may break out of the "sheep's clothing" frequently, and reveal their APD behaviors more often and target victims more broadly and in brash ways (e.g. openly insulting strangers or casual acquaintances during any encounter); this can also happen with an APD type deprived of a preferential target, or sufficient opportunities to enact rage against that preferential target, for any extent of time.
Abusers recruit! Abusers seek to bring others to the mindset of abuse. Victim blaming, raised above, is an extensive part of that effort. Asking victims what they did to cause abuse in their own lives, for instance, demands victims give up their sweet, gentle personalities that make them targets, and adopt a 'harder' personality, more akin to the abusers'. This is exactly the wrong expectation of any victims for any society that want to be a peaceful society, that wants to stop the sociopathologies within it that drive abuse and violence. "Normalizing" violence, which victim blaming also helps to do, is another key element in this abuser recruiting effort. California DMV (RICO) is an excellent example of such "normalized" perpetrations, where some high-up SD-APD created a policy and, in exactly the fashion of Cianci (U.S. v Cianci), gleefully succeeded in obtaining the knowing participation of tens of thousands of underlings in the criminal violence against millions of innocent citizens.
Abusers have favorites! Domestic abuse perpetrators tend to pick specific victims to become a favored target of their rage, or even see their rage, while most others, or perhaps all others, are treated to the charming front personality described just above. Most of the time, the chosen target or few targets will be whomever the perpetrator is closest to or spends the most time near. This tends to materialize as abuse of an intimate partner, or abuse of children in the home, but can be a coworker, employee, or anyone else with whom the perpetrator spends time. (Again, this list primarily is addressing several subcategories of APD perpetrators, but not necessarily including the numerous unique traits of stranger serial perpetrators like stranger rapists and stranger pedophiles who behave more like APDs with great power or deprived of a preferential target; who select targets outside their own inner circle of proximity, often even when some targets might be available within that circle).
Abusers kill! Victims of abuse have a hard time leaving their abusers in part because they are losing the ability to actively monitor the abuser, and possibly intervene to manage the abuser's rage level. Whether the victims can consciously recognize it or not, there is a deep and profound understanding that their lives are in danger, AND that that danger will INCREASE during or after any attempt to leave their abusers. Indeed, victims of domestic violence are astronomically more likely to be killed by their abusers during or after leaving their abusers than they were while staying with and monitoring the abuser. Moreover, victims often go to great lengths to placate their abusers throughout a relationship, in an effort to stay alive, and leaving an abuser, in itself means contradicting this learned behavior – not only contributing to the difficulty of leaving, but also to the likelihood of returning to an abuser, which is in fact safer for the victim more often than not (in cases where the victim can be identified and located by the abuser after leaving – not safer than staying out of the relationship safely unidentifiable and unlocatable to the abuser; why the right to remain anonymous is so critical to victims' survival).
Abusers don't stop abusing! Abusers have to BE stopped! Silencing a victim serves the abuser! Abusers feel entitled to abuse at some very deep level. Abusers find gratification in abusing, also at some very deep level. Abusers have a deeply driven need to abuse, for violence over which they have control. Abusers feel the need to control, manipulate and abuse their victims, their targets, in and with some manner of violence. Abusers must be exposed. External interventions are necessary to stop an abuser from abusing, or they will perpetrate until they die. Any victim's silence most serves an abusers ability to get away with abuse, avoid exposure, and go on to abuse again. Victims must speak up, and must be heard.
Abusers enforce helplessness! Abusers do everything in their power to disempower their victims! "Learned helplessness" is a victim-blaming misnomer for the active, aggressive work of abusers to force helplessness, program helplessness, onto and into their victims. Every survivor must be re-empowered in order to survive, in order to break themselves free of the cycle of violence. Anyone and everyone working to serve victims of domestic violence, helping them survive, must do, at every opportunity, whatever it takes to aid those victims in reclaiming power over every aspect of their lives – obtaining justice, obtaining personal safety and security, obtaining economic viability, obtaining everything else that may have been lost to domestic violence.

In addition, here are quotes from a variety of victims of domestic violence as to what they, in hindsight, felt were clues unnoticed. These cues may or may not be helpful recognizing serial, stranger perpetrators, but may help identify serial perpetrators of domestic violence...

"[The abusive partner] was super critical of everyone around. [The abusive partner] would criticize people all around – how they looked, dressed, acted, in really biting ways, and about really inane or trivial things – and almost never complimentary. Any excuse to pass judgment. [The abusive partner] would even shower someone with praise to their face, turn around and walk away with me, only to criticize that same person terribly – basically the praise given was always shown to be a lie by the criticism. More likely the criticism was the lie. Meanwhile, I was the cat's meow. Now I can see that [the abusive partner] was probably doing exactly the same to me as to all of those others that [the abusive partner] called friends in such a two-faced way. I'll bet [the abusive partner] was making up awful stories about me to everyone [the abusive partner] had a chance to, even while raining me with praise just the opposite of those stories."
"I got pretty good at telling when [the abusive partner] was lying. Whenever I was with [the abusive partner] socializing with people, I would watch [the abusive partner] tell far more lies than truth to people we encountered, one after another. Lie after lie would roll out of [the abusive partner's] mouth, facts that I knew weren't at all factual because I'd witnessed the facts that [the abusive partner] was so grossly misrepresenting. Or, [the abusive partner] would tell one person one thing about something, say something completely different, contradictory, to a second, and then make up a third, fourth, fifth, however many new versions of the same subject, for each and every person with whom it came up. I don't think [the abusive partner] ever kept track of what lie was told to whom, and it was amazing to me that people didn't seem to catch on. And when it came to opinions – those were whatever [the abusive partner] seemed to think the other person wanted to hear; whatever [the abusive partner] thought would get [the abusive partner] the most mileage with the other person."
"Mess-a-holics. That's one characteristic I realized all of my abusive ex's shared in common. I don't mean just a little disorganized, or dirty. I mean clutter that mostly consisted of trash, that was out and in the way. Loose papers and random personal items strewn loose everywhere, houses and cars alike. Across floors, seats, counters. No stacking, no neat piles, not even tucked away behind or under things out of the way; but kicked about, trampled, sat upon, thrown around, even across the room, if found to be too much in the way. I don't know how that might say 'abuser', but it's something that I'm definitely now averse to in a prospective [partner]."
"The first criticism targeted at me was subtle, a small thing. It just seemed like some bizarre, even desperate grasp at some excuse to pass judgment on me. But it was something that shouldn't have merited attention, let alone criticism. It wasn't important in the least, wasn't relevant to anything or discussion going on at the moment, and wasn't even relevant to [the abusive partner]. It didn't even make sense that it was mentioned, let alone raised as criticism. It was oddly disorienting. It fit with [the abusive partner's] chronic need to sit in judgment of anyone and everyone, that I came to see more and more as time went on. I don't know how to describe it better."
"The way I grew up, it's the rudest thing in the world to ask a woman her age. Godawful nasty thing to do to a woman. Like punching her in the stomach and slapping her in the face at the same time – which was always considered the appropriate response to the question. In fact, we all knew that it was illegal to ask, that the phrase 'you never ask a woman her age' was a statement of law, of English Common Law, which still prevailed. As a young girl, we learned that early. Then they suddenly started demanding that people get those stupid driver's licenses, doing these things like Mussolini and Hitler, like the King we revolted against in 1776, to change rights into so-called 'privileges', where they stamp some 'official' approval of even who you are on some document – suddenly people everywhere started feeling entitled to a woman's age, even though we all exercised our rights and kept our age and birthdate off our drivers' licenses, those of us that caved in to the tyranny and got them. [The abusive partner] felt entitled too. Right from the beginning, [the abusive partner] not only was godawful brazen enough to ask my age, but felt so totally entitled to it that [the abusive partner] refused to accept that I never tell my age – wouldn't accept that 'no' means 'no'. [The abusive partner's] first acts of violence with me were efforts to force it out of me, but getting my age was just the beginning: my partner felt just as entitled to take my life, too, and tried. Friends I've had for decades don't know my age – and they respect my right to keep that private. Abusers lack that respect. And when they accuse me of being ashamed of my age, I tell them that it is their sense of entitlement that is the shame."
"I've learned that you are your own person, I am my own person. A healthy [partner] may make themselves safe enough for you to share yourself and many intimate, even painful things, and will want you to if you want to, but will never feel entitled to that from you. Entitled to you, to your life, your existence, your history – that's an abuser. Things may be shared in a relationship – things, objects, resources, possessions. And perhaps you can even share your soul with a [partner], but certainly not on demand. Even the word sharing itself implies, to me, an element of it being given, as opposed to taken. Any [partner] that feels entitled to your soul, feels entitled to own you, possess you, control you. I watch for that sense of entitlement, take care to differentiate entitlement to my existence from entitlement to that which has been shared, and I think it will reveal to me many abusers."
"My [abusive partners] never wanted to socialize jointly with my friends, but always wanted to socialize with [the abusive partner's] friends. Now I think that was because these were people whom [the abusive partners] already knew how to manipulate and control, to get them to at least ignore any signs of abusing me that they might notice – that my own friends would almost certainly not ignore. Yet, even then, [the abusive partners'] own friends, across several of my abusive partners, were constantly telling [the abusive partners] to be good to me – they knew about the monsters behind the facades. With one partner, as it [the violence] got worse, [the abusive partner's] own friends were pulling me quietly aside to express their deep concern that [the abusive partner] was going to hurt me. I remember one, who was an ambulance driver, who said she was terrified that she was going to respond to a call and find that it was me. I tried to reassure her, told her, 'I don't think [the abusive partner] will hurt me that bad.' It wasn't too much longer before [the abusive partner] did, before [the abusive partner] tried to kill me."
"My abusive partner told me [the abusive partner] was going to hurt me. [The abusive partner] said, 'You've never hurt another soul in your whole life. You don't deserve what we're about to do to you.' That was shortly before I was given this poison that doctors say is killing me."